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TOBfit llirgmm "Unmersitg Sturifes 

IN 

AMERICAN HISTORY 



AN INTRODUCTION 

TO 



American Expansion Policy 



By James Morton Callahan 




Department of Histort and Political Science 

^Est Virginia: iHntUBrsitg 

MOHOANTOHN, W, VA. 

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A modern state university with full equipment of laboratories, libraries, 
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'^BSt TOrginia ^tniucrsitg Studies in ^mevitnn Hi^txxty 

A series of monographs on (1) American diplomatic history and foreign 
policy and (2) the American expansion policy, published by the head of the 
department of history and political science. 

These studies are based upon materials obtained through careful re- 
searches in the official manuscript archives at Washington and by examination 
of other original materials which have not been exploited by historical writers. 
They have been prepared in connection with lecture courses and seminary 
work for graduate students. 

The first number treats of "Russo-American relations during the Amer- 
ican civil war." Several numbers are devoted to inter-American relations — 
especially relations with South America and Central America. The following 
subjects are announced for 190S-9 : 

Project of a Spanish-American confederation, 1856. 

American-Mexican diplomatic relations, 1853-60. 

Some forgotten applications of the Monroe doctrine. 

Evolution of Seward's policy agains^. fhq French in Mexico. 

Evolution of American policy in the C^est Indies. 

Spanish-American policy during the 'American civil war. 

The Alaska Purchase and Americo-Canadian relations. 

Background of the American policy in Panama. 

Other subjects will be announced later. A series on West Virginia his- 
tory is being planned. 

Department of History and Political Science, W- Va. University, 



Copyright, 1908. 
By J. M. Callahan. 



&I 



-71 



/ 

c '^ 

IN 

AMERICAN HISTORY 

An Introduction to 

American Expansion Policy 



I. Westward Movement. 

There is no more significant, magnificent and spectacular 
mcvement in modern history than that of the motley, heroic, sub- 
lime migrating procession which, receiving its start from Euro- 
pean conditions and breaking barrier after barrier, decade after 
decade has swept across the American continent within the last 
century — from tide waters and bays to summits, then to central 
rivers swollen by far-gathered floods, then to the far-away Colum- 
bia and in fevered rush across wide prairies and the Rockies, or 
over isthmuses, or around distant cape, to the Golden Gate — and 
finally across the fretful Pacific, the theatre of great future his- 
torical events, to the portals of the Orient, and the farthest isles 
of the bi'oadest ocean. 

The feverish, restless westward movement from the tide 
waters of the Atlantic coast, slow at first, but gradually gaining 
momentum and force, adding territory after territory to the Amer- 
ican union, and extending her commerce and beneficent influence 
to distant lands and peoples, is the great central fact of Amer- 
ican history. Expansion, non-parasitic,^ vigorous and attractive, 
developing by affinity, contending against both restriction and se- 
cession, has been America's greatest feat. A peculiar character- 
istic of federalism is its power to extend over large areas, as a 
pure democracy could not do. 

Back of this movement was a long period of preparation. In 
the mutations of ancient nations, many "earthly transient pa- 
geants" departed, leaving their impress on the civilization of the 



1 See U. S. Review, Feb., 1853, p. 173, et seq. 



2 Amebican Expansion Polict 

world. Then the barbarous Teutons advanced to conquer em- 
pires, and new nations arose in western Europe. Finally, after 
long years of strife and war — in which democracy had begun to 
gain ground — ships, no longer creeping along the shore like Jason 
of old, sailed across an unknown ocean in search of a new trade 
route, and accidentally discovered a new world which gave a new 
impulse to the old one. Then followed a race of discovery and 
colonization. 

Though Columbus discovered America in 1492, there was no 
permanent English settlement within the present limits of the 
United States until the seventeenth century. Before Gilbert and 
Raleigh, the English sought India and the Spanish treasure-ships, 
which were ransacking the bowels of Mexico and carrying gold 
from the Spanish main. The first explorers, in their storm- 
tossed ships, did not aim at permanent settlement. Gilbert sailed 
to make a colony on the mainland, near Newfoundland, which was 
to serve as a supply station for a contemplated route to the Pacific 
by way of the St. Lawrence, the lakes, and the rivers fiowing 
through the continent. John Smith sailed up the Chickahominy 
in search of a route to China and the South Sea to which all the 
land grants extended, and Spain feared that the Jamestown colony 
was intended only as a base against the Spanish.^ Exploration 
merged into settlement and freedom took up its abode on Amer- 
ican shores. Colonization arose as a safety valve for conditions 
in England and as a means of liberty for colonists. The motives 
behind it were both economic and political. Emigrants from Eng- 
land and Europe, to avoid grievances and misfortunes at home, 
sought a remedy in America. Before the close of the seventeenth 
century, English writers, speaking of the increasing colonists on 
the Atlantic coast, saw that they would inevitably advance farther 
west to "seek for new possessions," refuse to acknowledge sub- 
jection to Europe, and "set up for themselves" a great empire 
which would "give law to the rest of the world." These prophesies 
increased during the next century, and in the time of Adam Smith 
it was suggested that the seat of the British Empire should be 
removed to North America. 

At first there were only a few feeble, slowly-advancing English 
settlements trembling between the sea and the unexplored savage 
forest which the self-reliant pioneers were to master and arouse 
from the sleep of ages by a long and arduous contest; but "to have 



=" Problems relating to the Pacific and the former Spanish territory have 
persisted in forming a large part of American history. 



An Introduction 3 

more land" ran in the Anglo-Saxon blood, and the institutions of 
self-government v.'ere destined to advance tov/ard the lakes, the. 
Mississippi and the Pacific. 

As early as 1716, Governor Spottsv.ood of Virginia led a com- 
pany of cavaliers tiiroiigh the passes of the Blue Ridge to the 
valley of the Shenandoah, and to Pendleton county, West Virginia,, 
and planned to occupy the country beyond from the mountains to 
the lakes, but he was soon removed from office and his imperial 
plans remained unexecuted until the days of Governor Dinwiddle. 
From 1748 to 1754, when England stimulated settlement on the 
branches of the Ohio, adventurous spirits were already passing to 
the ridges of the Allegheny mountains from v>'hich they could look 
into the valleys and plains v,-here the races of the world were to 
settle and weld themselves into a national democracy.'' By 1750, 
the smoke was curling up from their cabin homes beyond the 
mountain barrier, and the incessant v/ave of frontiersmen, felling 
the mighty m.onarchs of the forest and clearing the way for civil- 
ization, pressed on from the sea and the mountain to the great 
central valley v.'hich Prance was striving to hold from occupa- 
tion. 

The mission of the age was to subdue the wilderness and 
carry the Anglo-Saxon frontier farther and farther westward. 
English expansion had absorbed New Amsterdam and completed 
a chain of colonies on the Atlantic with a border sweeping west- 
ward to destroy the French dreams of a mid-continent empire 
and to secure the keys of the West. In 1754 at Great Meadows 
on the Monongahela, Washington fired the shot which was "heard 
around the world," and began a war which decided the destiny 
of America. The Forbes expedition of 1758 gave the Ohio valley 
to the English. The empire which France had attempted to build 
by her missionaries and trading posts, received its death-blow at 



" In 1726 Mr. Harris built a cabin on the Susquehanna, and soon his 
son established a ferry, at the point where Harrisburg now stands. In 1727, 
Mecklenburg (Shepherdstown, W. Virginia) was settled. By 1750 nearly all 
the good valleys had been occupied to the main ridge of the Alleghenies which 
marks the headwaters of the rivers flowing eastward. In 1748 the Ohio Com- 
pany was formed. The attempt of France to lay claim to the Ohio river region 
by the Celeron expedition of 1749 was doomed to defeat by the activity of the 
Anglo-Americans. In 1750, Christopher Gist, surveyor and agent of the Ohio 
Company, made a circular trip up the Juniata branch of the Susquehanna, 
down the Ohio almost to the falls, and up the Kentucky and across the moun- 
tains to his home on the Yadkin. In 1752. after accompanying Col. Joshua 
Fry to Logtown on a mission to conciliate the Indians, he built a cabin (still 
standing) near the site of the present town of Connellsville, Pa. There Wash- 
ington found him in 1753. 



4 American Expansion Policy 

Quebec in 1759. England who stood by Frederick the Great in 
his annexation of Silesia, at the close of the Seven Years' War 
was able to drive France from the American continent and to 
secure territory from the lakes to the Arctic seas. At the south 
she also received Florida in return for Havana and the Philip- 
pines which she had taken in 1762. 

The American colonists rejoiced at English expansion, but 
when the English government attempted (1763) to restrict their 
expansion beyond the Appalachians, and to enforce increased 
taxation, they asserted that their rights came not from the edicts 
of kings but from the laws of nature, and, as a sovereign people, 
they formed an American nation to try the experiment of the 
rule of the multitude based upon the principle of equality.* 

In the meantime, the westward movement did not cease. By 
1767 Mason and Dixon's Line was surveyed to the Warrior branch 
^f the Catawba war path near Mount Morris,' Pa., where the sur- 
veying party was stopped by the Indians. 

In 1768, by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix the territory between 
rthe Tennessee and the Ohio, was relinquished by the Indians. 

In 1769, settlements were made at Morgantown and at Wheel- 
ing in West Virginia. In the same year, Watauga, Tennessee was 
settled, and John McCullough (of Virginia), Daniel Boone^ and 
others began to penetrate farther into the wilderness. In 1773 



* Turgot iu 1770, had foreseen the separation of "all America from 
Europe," and, in 1784, he predicted the further expansion of the United States 
by husbandry. Dean Tucker, considering the vast unexplored regions beyond 
the back settlements, said it was visionary to talk of the United States under 
any form of government ever becoming anything other than a disunited people, 
but Major John Cartwright, in 17814, had foreseen that, by the laws of nature, 
the Americans "must * * * cover in a few ages that immense continent 
like a swarm of bees." 

5 The line was not completed until 1782-84. The western line of Penn- 
sylvania was surveyed in 1785-86. (Veech : The Monongahela of Old). 

" Boone, the typical frontiersman of his day, was born in Bucks county, 
Pennsylvania, in 1735, moved up the Shenandoah to the Yadkin by 1753, was 
with Braddock in 1755 (and married in the same year), and first visited east- 
ern Kentucky in 1761. Becoming dissatisfied with social and economic con- 
ditions in North Carolina, he continued his trips to the "hunters' paradise" 
toward the west ; and finally, in 1773, he sold his farm and started to Ken- 
tucky, but meeting hostile Indians near Cumberland Gap, he retreated to the 
Clinch. Here he left his family until 1775, but in June, 1774. with instruc- 
tions from Lord Dunmore he conducted a party of surveyors into Kentucky, 
where he soon established a home and did valuable service as an Indian fighter. 
In 1795 he settled west of St. Louis, where he died in 1822. In 1845 his 
remains were removed to Frankfort, Kentucky. 



An Introduction 5 

Parkersburg was begun, and land where Louisville now stands 
was surveyed. In 1774 the way was prepared for further advance 
by the battle at Point Pleasant in which the Indians were defeated. 
In 1775 Boonsborough, Kentucky, was founded, in 1777 Louisville, 
and by 1779 Harrodsburg and Lexington, and also Nashville,' 
Tennessee. In 177S, George Rogers Clark captured Kaskaskia, 
and in 1779 Vincennes, by a small force of western men. In 1780, 
Clark built a block house where Cincinnati is now located. lu 
1784, the settlers of Tennessee held a convention, formed the new 
state of Franklin with John -Sevier' as governor, and proceeded 
to conclude treaties with the Cherokee Indians. In 1788, both 
Marietta and Cincinnati were founded, and in 1790 Gallipolis.' 

It was America's lot to lead in new paths. As the smoke of 
the hard-fought battles of the Revolution cleared away, the former 
colonies were loosely united, with many causes of disunion which 
were soon harmonized by a new constitution. Then followed the 
development of the giant West. The strong American combina- 
tion of Norse, Celt, Norman and Saxon, with wings strengthened 
by migration and rigorous environment, moved forward to wrestle 
and experiment with the opportunities of the wilderness, to 
domesticate nature and develop ideas of liberty and self-govern- 



' The story of the settlement of Nashville well illustrates the ancestral 
fibre of the west. In 1779, James Robertson of the Watauga settlements on 
the western border of North Carolina, gathered 380 people to settle farther 
west. Of the 130 women and children who went by boat and canoe down the 
unknown and dangerous waters of the Holstein and the Tennessee, only 97 
reached the present site of Nashville at the end of the journey of three 
months. (One of the survivors was Rachel Donelson, later the wife of An- 
drew Jackson). Of the 250 men who followed 500 miles of "trace," only 226 
survived at the end of the trip. In November, 1780, les.s than a year after 
the party was organized, only 134 persons survived (and there had been but 
one natural death). In the spring of 1781, only 70 were alive, but not one of 
the.se heroes voted to return. In 1791 only 15 were alive, but there was not 
one inch of retreat from distance gained. The story of their struggles is more 
interesting than the tales of the Trojan war. 

» Am. Hist. Review. Vol. I, Oct., 1895, pp. 70-87 (F. J. Turner: Western 
State Making). 

» Sparks: Expansion of the American people, Chap. 11 (The Peopling 
of the Northwest Territory). Settlements along the southern shores of the 
lakes (where there were no roads) were not made until near the end of the 
century. In 1796, Gen. Moses Cleveland, agent of the "Connecticut Land 
Company," landed at the mouth of the Conneaut river with fifty settlers and 
began the present city of Cleveland. A year later a road was cleared between 
Cleveland and the Pennsylvania line ; and by 1800 there were at least twenty- 
five settlements in the Western Reserve, with a total population of 1,300. In 
1802, Ohio territory applied for statehood. 



6 American Expansion Policy 

ment. The active sought to employ energy, the men in debt T*'ere 
anxious to escape the tax collector and the creditor, the wild and 
reckless desired a wider field for exploit, and even the idle soon 
found a new life v>'hich awakened their sleeping powers into 
action. It was the era of the rifle, the axe, the covered wagon, 
the ox-cart and the log-cabin. People were not excluded from the 
soil as in Europe where ovvnership was by the few. All the ter- 
ritory of the Union was the common property, and no citizen 
could be prevented from moving thither with his family. The 
farmer and the carpenter followed the hunter and explorer. 
Daring men and heroic Vv^omen fitted to participate in many real 
though humble tragedies, with quickened pulse pushed up the 
Shenandoah and through Cumberland Gap'" or over more northern 
divides, and following the Indian trails and the rivers," or cutting 
nev/ paths'- started young self-governing communities in the fertile 
valleys drained toward the West and the South. In patches of 
cleared land, strewn with arrow-heads, they planted the seed for 
future harvests; they transformed the primeval forests into wav- 
ing fi.eids of grain and opened the way for new states and further 
expansion of a great and enduring republic. 

Settlements continued to increase rapidly," notwithstanding 
the general idea in the East that they would be slow and danger- 
ous to republican institutions, and soon the question of Western 
commerce became an important one." 



^° Cumberland Gap and the Wilderness Road (which Boone laid out as 
far as the blue grass region of Kentucky in 1769) had a great influence in 
the settlement of the Mississippi valley. (Hulbert: Historic Highways, vol. 6). 

" Sparks: Expansion of the American People, chap. 12. ("Journeying 
to the Ohio Country"). 

'2 In 1796, by authority of Congress, Zane's "trace" was cut from Wheel- 
ing in a southwesterly direction to the Ohio at Limestone (now Maysville, 
Kentucky) crossing rivers at points where Zanesvllle, Lancaster and Chilli- 
cothe now stand. In 1806 Congress, with a desire to lessen the hardships of 
travel between East and West, ordered the survey of a highway to the Ohio 
which later resulted in the Cumberland national road. 

" The rush for land was much stimulated by Cupid. Love and enterprise 
walked hand in hand and promoted marriage. To some, the journey was a 
wedding tour, while to others it furnished the occasion for love affairs and 
courtships which terminated in marriage before the journey was ended. * 

'* The building of flat-boats and barges at Pittsburg and along the Ohio 
was growing into an important industry. In 1800, the sailing vessel "St. 
Clair," rigged for ocean navigation, was launched at Marietta, Ohio, and 
(under command of Commodore Whipple), afier carrying a load of pork and 
flour to New Orleans, made the trip to Havana, from whence she carried a 
load of sugar to Philadelphia. 



An Intkoduction 7 

The growth of the West with its thinly settled region, imma- 
ture society, less experience, little wealth, and ultra-democratic 
ideas swept from power the Federalists who had opposed the an- 
nexation of territory for new states, and prepared the way for 
the further democratization of American institutions. 

With the purchase of Louisiana which destined the United 
States for a continental power, new problems arose and the pio- 
neers, now crossing the Mississippi, turned to fresh conquests of 
nature's virgin soil. Fulton zealously experimented with his in- 
genius steamboat,'' which was invented with a view to the navi- 
gation of the Mississippi from its mouth upward, and the Missouri, 
the Ohio and other tributaries. Jefferson sent expeditions to ex- 
plore the great tributaries of the Mississippi to their head waters 
in the Rockies and to open communication with the Pacific. In 
1804-06 Lewis and Clark discovered a route across the continent;" 



^' In 1807, in defiance to a jeering, scoffing crowd, Fulton's steamboat, 
the Clermont, laboriously snorting and puffing, burning cords of pine wood and 
belching fire and smoke from its throat, lashing the water with its side wheel 
and shaking the river with its roar, put out from New York toward Albany 
at the rate of four miles per hour. The incredulity of the crowd which had 
been shouting its ridicule was succeeded by silent astonishment and then by 
cheers of undisguised delight. Farther up the river the simple river men, 
crews of the sailing vessels, terrified at the approach of the strange smoking 
and noisy monster, fell on their knees praying or fled shrieking, leaving their 
deserted vessels to drift helplessly down the stream. After continued trips of 
the Clermont, their fear gave way to hatred. They were apprehensive that the 
new craft would entirely destroy their business. They denounced the new 
invention, and captains of sailing vessels frequently attempted to sink it by 
running into it. The hostility of the boatmen became so great that after the 
Clermont was damaged by several collisions the New York legislature passed a 
law declaring combinations to destroy her or willful attempts to injure her 
public offenses punishable by fine and imprisonment. 

'" The expedition of Lewis and Clark, one of the world's greatest explora- 
tions, completed the work of nearly three centuries during which transconti- 
nental exploration had been largely stimulated by fruitless search tor a myth- 
ical waterway, and the discovery of America had been accomplished by many 
enterprises in all parts of the globe from the capes on the south to the snows 
of Siberia and Behring Sea on the north. It cojnpleted the work of the suc- 
cessors of Balboa, Cortez, Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado, and other Spaniards ; of 
Nicolet, La Salle, Joliet, Marquette and Verendrye, of the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany, Carver, Hearne, Mackenzie and Ledyard. As early as 1783 Jefferson 
had written George Rogers Clark suggesting an expedition to explore the region 
between the Mississippi and the Pacific ; in 1786, he induced John Ledyard 
to try to cross Siberia in order to approach the Mis.souri region from 
the west ; in 1793, he instructed Andre Michaux to ascend the Missouri and 
explore to the Pacific by the shortest route, but Michaux's expedition ended 
in Kentucky when he became the active agent of Genet in trying to induce 
the Kentuckians led by George Rogers Clark to march under the banner of 



8 American Expansion Policy 

and in 1806-07, (soon after the collapse of Burr's western enter- 
prise), Captain Z. M. Pike, who had returned from an expedition 
of exploration to the upper waters of the Mississippi (as far as 
Cass and Leech lakes in Minnesota), was detailed by General 
James Wilkinson with instructions to direct an expedition which 
made exploration along the Arkansas almost to its head waters." 



France to an attack on New Orleans In 1802, President Jefferson 
saw a favorable opportunity to carry his previous plans into effect, and in 
January, 1803, urged Congress to appropriate the $2,500 for the expedition 
for which he had already selected Lewis as the chief leader. In April, Lewis 
began active preparations ; in May he received his detailed instructions ; later 
he selected William Clark (a brother of George Rogers Clark) as his com- 
panion on the trip ; on July 5, 1803, (a few days after the arrival of news 
announcing the purchase of Louisiana) he said farewell to Jefferson at Wash- 
ington ; and on August 31, after securing supplies, and after sending word 
ahead requesting the commanders of the West to call for volunteers for the 
expedition, he left Pittsburg for the descent of the Ohio. Early in December 
the expedition reached the Dubois river, opposite St. Louis, where it con- 
structed a winter camp and spent five months in careful preparation for the 
long and arduous journey. On March 9, 1804, Lewis was one of the official 
witnesses at the transfer of upper Louisiana at St. Louis. On May 14, the 
expedition (33 persons) left the Dubois river and in October, 1804, after 
overcoming many difficulties and solving many problems, it reached the Man- 
dan village near the present city of Bismarck, North Dakota, where it spent 
five months. On April 7, 1805, the expedition started again, and after a 
succession of curious adventures and severe trials (sometimes with only dogs 
and horses for food), crossed the divide from the Jefferson branch of the 
Missouri to the Lemhi tributary of the Columbia, thence over the bewildering 
ridges of the heavily timbered Bitterroot mountains, and along the Nez Perce 
trail to the Weippe plain, thence by the Clearwater and the Columbia to 
Pacific tide water, which was reached in November, 1805. After a long and 
tiresome winter full of hardships — largely taken up in preparation for the 
return — the expedition started up the Columbia on March 23, 1806, and after 
much labor and many interesting experiences reached the upper Clearwater 
(May 8), the Weippe prairie (June 10), then the mouth of Traveller's Rest 
Creek (July 1), where the party was divided into three divisions, all of 
which (after many dangers and exciting episodes) were reunited (August 12) 
below the mouth of the Yellowstone, down whose waters Clark made a success- 
ful but hazardous expedition. On September 23, the expedition reached St. 
Louis, where Lewis despatched a brief account of the expedition to Jefferson. 
On February 14, 1807, Lewis arrived at Washington, and soon thereafter was 
granted a tract of land and appointed governor of Louisiana. Clark was ap- 
pointed general of the militia of the territory and Indian agent. In 1813 he 
was appointed governor of the upper Louisiana territory (Missouri territory), 
and in 1822 superintendent of Indian affairs (which he held until his death 
in 1838). 

^' Pike had instructions to accompany fifty-one Osage and Pawnee In- 
dians to their homes and (after establishing a good understanding with other 
Indian tribes) to explore the Arkansas and Red rivers. On July 15, with a 
party of twenty-two men, he left the mouth of the Missouri. He ascended 
the Missouri in rowboats to the Osage, and from the principal Osage village 



An Introduction 9 

It -was evident that while the American government was deter- 
mined to hold and to cultivate the region south of the great lakes 
it was inquisitively anxious to obtain information concerning the 
new territory and the region beyond its boundaries. 

After the war of 1812, by which America attained commercial 
and industrial independence, especial attention was directed to 
internal development, and movement to the west increased greatly. 
The policy of European congresses, the conditions of Europe after 
the imprisonment of Napoleon in 1815, and the disbanding of the 
great armies which had been fighting France since 1789, greatly 
influenced the development of America. While Metternich was 
chief cook, Liberalists could get no dinner. Debts, taxes, political 
proscription, and hungry stomachs induced a large emigration 
from Europe to the American land of promise. Napoleon, at St. 
Helena, said: "America is a fortunate country; she grows by the 
folly of our European nations." There were about 250,000 Old 
World arrivals form the Revolution to 1820, and the yearly num- 
ber was increased from 10,000 in 1820 to 100,000 in 1842. 



proceeded over the Kansas plains by horses to the country of the Pawnees 
on the Republican river (in Nebraska), thence southwest over the "desert 
barrier" of Kansas to the Arkansas east of the mouth of Pawnee fork (near 
Great Bend, Kan.). Sending Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson to explore to 
the mouth, he advanced toward the source of the Arkansas until the river 
became a narrow torrent with a background of lofty white-capped mountains. 
Then after advancing northward from Pueblo (Nov. 24) in a fruitless at- 
tempt to ascend the peak which now bears his name (and which he had first 
seen froml the Purgatory river on November 15) he followed the Arkansas 
to the present site of Canon City, ascended Oil Creek to South Park, and after 
many wanderings reached the waters of the South Platte and returned to the 
Arkansas, which he ascended to the vicinity of Leadville in spite of bitter 
cold and many other hardships and dangers. He thought he was on Red 
river until he descended to Canon City. The strange, weird story of his nor- 
row escape, bewildering marches in all directions, and desperate struggle for 
life is full of human interest. Finally, on January 14, 1807, he started 
southward up Grape Creek and through Wet Mountain valley, and notwith- 
standing the severe cold and scarcity of food pushed on over the Sangre de 
Christo range into the San Luis valley, and reached the Rio Grande (January 
30). Descending to the mouth of the Conezos (near the present southern 
boundary of Colorado) he built a stockade, and sent Dr. John H. Robinson 
to Santa Fe. ostensibly to collect a debt due a friend, but really to get mil- 
itary information. The Spaniards suspecting that Pike was connected with 
Burr'.s scheme to seize Mexican territory, sent a company of one hundred 
horsemen, which escorted Pike's party as prisoners to Santa Fe, from whence 
they were soon taken to Chihuahua to Governor Salcedo, who retained the 
larger part of the papers and sketches of the expedition, but allowed Pike 
and Robinson to return (under escort) through Coahuila and San Antonia 
(Texas) to the American settlement at Natchitoches, Louisiana, which was 
reached July 1, 1807. Eight other members of the party were returned later. 



10 American Expansion Policy 

The dull times in the East after 1814, the acquisition of 
Florida, the removal of the Indians, better means of transporta- 
tion, the cheapness of land in the West, the desire for broader 
opportunities, and the natural spirit of adventure caused a con- 
tinual stream of emigration to the valleys of the Mississippi, where 
solitude and privation were founding a great West. Soon the 
work of a national road '* was moving v/estward over ravines and 
hills tov/ard the middle West v.here the throb of the nation's life 
was best felt, and within a few years the Ohio and Mississippi 
swarmed with steamboats'" which furnished a fairly rapid and 
adequate means of transportation of the western commerce. 



" The national "Cumberland road" was completed to Wheeling by 1818, 
and was continued v/estward from that point until the new era of railway- 
transportation induced Congress (1838) to make no further appropriations to 
continue it. Nemocolin's path, the Washington road and the Braddock road 
were links in the chain of evolution of the Cumberland road (Hulbert : His- 
toric Highways, vol. 10). 

^" Steamboats have had a great influence in western history. In 1787, 
Manassah Cutler, in a pamphlet inviting settlement on land granted to the 
Ohio Company, said "in all probability, steamboats will be found to be of 
infinite service in our river navigation." In 1809, Robt. R. Livingston and 
Robert Fulton sent Nicholas J. Roosevelt to the West to investigate the Ohio 
and Mississippi navigation, and soon directed him to build a steamboat on the 
Monongahela. The "Neto Orleans" was constructed at a cost of $38,000, and 
with Roosevelt and wife as its only passengers started down the Ohio Sep- 
tember 28, 1811, and reached New Orleans early in 1812. Other steamers 
were built at Pittsburg by 1813 and 1814, and at Wheeling by 1816. The 
"Ontario" was built on Lake Ontario in 1816 and the "Walk-in-the-Water" 
on Lake Erie in 1818. (No .steamboat reached Chicago until 1832). The 
sixth steamer on western rivers, the "Z. M. Pike,'^ built in 1815, reached St. 
Louis in August, 1817, and was the first steamer north of Cairo on the Mis- 
sissippi. The Independence was the first steamer to enter the Missouri (1819). 
In the same year the "Western Engineer," built especially for Major S. H. 
Long, reached the mouth of the Platte. In 1833, the Assuuhoine ascended to 
Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone. In 1818, fourteen steamboats 
were built on western rivers ; and in 1819, twenty-three. By 1820, seventy- 
one had been built on the Mississippi system, against four on the lakes and 
flfty-two on the Atlantic south of New England. (Even in 1820-30, only eight 
were built on the lakes). A special impetus was given to the steamboat 
trade in 1824 when the Fulton-Livingston Louisiana monopoly was broken 
down by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of 
Gibbins vs. Ogden, that the waters of the Mississippi are the heritage of the 
whole people and subject only to federal legislation. Steamboat navigation 
was also greatly increased by the construction of the canal around the falls 
at Louisville in 1831. The number of steamboats on the Mississippi and its 
tributaries rapidly increased. There were 230 in 1834 ; 450 in 1842 ; 600 in 
1843 ; 1,200 in 1848 ; and 4,000 by 1850. By 1844, St. Louis rivaled Pitts- 
burg in the manufacture of steamboat supplies. 



An Introduction 11 

The earlier economic development of the west was largely 
influenced hy the steamboat, which gave access to a market, and 
by the spread of cotton culture in the southwest which created a 
market for surplus agricultural products. 

America, with a national optimism, which expected to con- 
tinue to get what it wanted, did not trouble itself about the future. 
It had successfully avoided the disasters which had been inaccu- 
rately "prophesied" from time to time; and, learning wisdom in 
the school of original experience, was able to meet problems as 
they arose and pressed for solution. The hardy pioneers from 
Europe and the East, full of self-confidence, independence, econ- 
omic energy, and political interests, and left largely to their own 
devices, became an important factor in establishing a new and 
vigorous national life free from many of the traditions of colonial 
days. America boasted not of ancestors, but only of the pos- 
terity for which she alone was responsible. She preferred to look 
to future glory rather than to the past, even if it should be more 
uncertain. She was in her infancy,^* but she was building for 
the future with heart dilating at future prospects. Her policy^ 
was tersely expressed in the dictum of Davy Crockett: "Be sure>i 
you are right, then go ahead." Michael Chevalier once said (1867) 
that the vigorous society established in America left behind on- 
European soil the impedimenta of traditions, prejudices, and' 
usages which "would have embarrassed its movements and re- 
tarded its progressive march." 

The western Niagara-rush of sweeping energy was carrying- 
America onward to her destiny. In 1816, a congressional com- 
mittee on the development of the West reported: "The rapidity 
of its growth is such that even whilst we are employed in draw- 
ing the portrait, the features continue to enlarge and the picture 



After 1855, steamers played a large part in military operations along- 
the Missouri and its tributaries. After 1859, when the railroad reached St. 
Joseph, Missouri, a contest began in which the railroads gradually supplanted' 
steamers on the western rivers. Steamboating declined there especially after 
1868-70, and now there are more steamers on the Yukon than there are on 
the Missouri. There was an extraordinary developemnt of steamer traflSc- 
above Fort Benton on the Missouri in 1866-67, due to the discovery of gold 
on a branch of the Jefferson fork in 1863 and near the present site of Helena 
in 1864. Of the various dramatic incidents of steamer days in the far north- 
west, one of the most stirring was the run of the "Far West" after the- 
Custer massacre in 1876, down the narrow and unknown Big Horn, the dan- 
gerous Yellowstone, and the Missouri with the speed of a railway train 
(1,000 miles in 54 hours) carrying the wounded to Bismarck. 

3» English travelers complained that the people slept three in a bed andi 
were deficient in good manners. 



12 American Expansion Policy 

becomes distorted." Calhoun said (in 1817) : "We are great, 
and rapidly — I was about to say fearfully — growing." Soon Aus- 
tin's semi-lawless and adventurous "briar-breakers" were forming 
a nucleus for the organization of the future commonwealth of 
Texas. Anglo-American colonies were settled by individual emi- 
grants, and called into existence by the people rather than by the 
Government^ A wilderness, impassable one year, was traversed 
the next by caravans of industrious emigrants. The rapid march 
v/estward was not an irruption of wild barbarians. Wherever the 
sons of the parent states wandered into new territories, they 
carried with them law and order and "kept a warm corner in 
their hearts" for the rocky shores and earlier settlements on the 
Atlantic coast. After 1825 the westward movement had reached 
the prairies, where less clearing was required, and became very 
rapid. Every breeze blew the ship of state forward and inflated 
the minds of youthful writers and speakers to indulge in over- 
strained sentiment and exaggerated nationality.-' 

In transportation, the river and canal period had supplanted 
the turnpike period. Eastern commercial cities were competing 
for the western trade. 

On November 4, 1825, a significant pageant^ ceremoniously 
entering New York harbor (after an eight day trip through the 
canal and down the Hudson). It announced the "wedding of 
the waters of the lakes with the Atlantic by the completion of 
the Erie canal,"^ v/hich soon became a great influence in the devel- 



-^ See Edward Everett's Oration and Speeches, Boston, 1850. (Read the 
preface.) 

^ Governor Clinton made a triumphal journey by barge from Buffalo lo 
New York, starting from Buffalo, Oct. 26, and reaching New York harbor oa 
Nov. 4. (Hulbert : Historic highways, vol. 14 ; Nile's Register, vol. 25 ; W. 
L. Stone : Narrative of Festivities Observed in Honor of the Completion of 
the Grand Erie Canal). 

-■' Improvement of the Mohawk was suggested as early as 1768. A route 
for a canal around Niagara was surveyed in 1784. Public interest in canal 
connection with the lakes was awakened in 1792. The idea was suggested 
by Gouveneur Morris in 1777, 1795, 1801 and 1803, by Jesse Hawley in 
1807, by Joshua Forman in 1808, and by Clinton in 1810. Clinton prepared 
the memorial to the New York legislature (in 1816) which resulted in the 
act of April 15, 1817, giving birth to the canal. 



An Introduction 13 

opment of New York and the West and a stimulus to develop- 
ment elsewhere.^* In 1828 Governor Clinton of New York, as the 
guest of Ohio, turned the first earth on a canal to connect Lake 
Erie with the Ohio river. On July 4, of the same year, President 
Adams in shirt sleeves threw the first spadeful of earth from a 
canal projected to connect the Chesapeake with the Ohio and other 
interior waterways. On the same day similar ceremonies inau- 
gurated the building of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, whose 
builders in a fev/ years passed the diggers of the canal at Harpers 
Ferry. Other railroads were soon begun between towns already 
in existence, and by 1850 they had almost superseded the canals 
and were becoming an important agent in the settlement of the 
newer states where the engineer often became the pioneer."^ 



=* The effect of the construction of the Erie canal is most interesting in 
connection with the relation of western communication to the development 
of competition between the great eastern commercial centers. An excellent 
small volume bearing on the subject is Albert Perry Brigham's "From trail 
to railway through the Appalachians." (Ginn & Co. 1907.) 

-^ The amazing rapidity of railroad development in the United States is 
significant. The earliest railroads were mere acces.sories to established routes 
of water travel. They were short lines built to connect towns with navigable 
water, or to connect two seaports whose coast communication had been long 
or dangerous. Such were the earlier roads built around Boston (1830-35), 
the Baltimore and Ohio to Harpers Ferry (1828-34), Charleston and Ham- 
burg (1833), the Bo.ston and Albany (1842), the roads across New Jersey 
(1834 and 1838), the Baltimore and Ohio from BaU;pi.->re ti Washington 
(1834), the line from Philadelphia to Baltimore (1837), the line from Rich- 
mond to 'Fredericksburg (1837), and the line from Richmond to Wilmington 
(1833-40). The first and second chains of railroads across the Appalachians 
were built in New York. The first line extended from Albany to Buffalo 
(1843) and was divided into short lines of sixteen different companies. (The 
Hudson River railroad was completed in 1851. In 1853 the different con- 
necting lines between Albany and Buffalo were consolidated into the New 
York Central. By 1869 further consolidation had formed the New York 
Central and Hudson River railroad, which v/ith its six-track system does a 
far greater business than any other line between east and west). The second 
line connected the lower Hudson with Dunkirk on Lake Erie (1851). The 
Baltimore and Ohio was completed to Cumberland in 1842 and to Wheeling 
in 1849-1853. The Pennsylvania conquered the mountains and completed 
connection from the Susquehanna to Pittsburg in 1854 (and by 1857 pur- 
chased the old Pennsylvania canal in order to eliminate competition). Lines 
from Charleston and Savannah were continued to Chattanooga and then to 
Nashville (1854). A line from Norfolk via Lynchburg (1854) and along 
the old Wilderness road to Bristol (1857) was completed to Knoxville and 
Chattanooga in 1858. The C. and O. was completed westward to the base of 
the main Allegheny range at Covington in 1857, but was not completed to 
Huntington on the Ohio until 1873. 

By 1852, Ohio had three railroads across the state from north to south: 
(1) from Sandusky to Cincinnati [Sandusky and Dayton (1832-48) and Little 



14 American Expansion Policy 

By 1830, the centre of population moved across the Appala- 
chians, and the United States was no longer dominated by the 
Atlantic. De Tocqueville found the "United States peopling the 
western wilderness at the average rate of seventeen miles per 
annum," and said that she would cover with her off-shoots almost 
all North America from the polar ice to the tropics. In the decade 
from 1830 to 1040 the frontier moved westward to the 95th merid- 
ian at the margin of the great plains. Many frontiersmen, like 
Davy Crockett^ after a series of moves toward the Mississippi, 
finally crossed its waters as the frontier advanced. 



Miami between Springfield and Cincinnati (1846)]; (2) from Columbus to 
Cleveland (1851) ; and (3) from Cleveland to Pittsburg (1852). 

In 1852, the New York trans-Appalachian lines pushed westward along 
Lake Erie to Cleveland, and by January, 1853, reached Toledo. (There were 
no through trains for several years. The attempts, in 1853, to unite the 
roads meeting at Erie by changing the guage of one of the roads led to a 
bitter, unparalleled local outbreak known as the "Erie war," which lasted 
for about three years and engendered animosities whose echoes bave scarcely 
ceased yet.) A road from Toledo to Lake Michigan (the Michigan Southern) 
had been begun in 1843 and was completed to (Chicago in 1852. (The Mich- 
igan Central, constructed westward from Detroit, reached Chicago at the 
same time). In 1854 a line was opened from Bellaire (opposite Wheeling) 
to Columbus, Ohio, and a branch from Newark to Sandusky. In the same year 
the Chicago and Rock Island was completed to the Mississippi ; and between 
1855 and 1856 Chicago became the center of roads connecting with the Mis- 
sissippi at Galena, Alton, Burlington, Quincy and the mouth of the Ohio. 
The Milwaukee and La Crosse road was completed in 1858, and a road from 
Chattanooga to Memphis in the same year. The Chicago and Northwestern 
reached Council Bluffs in 1867. In 1859 the Louisville and Nashville was com- 
pleted to Nashville, cutting off every southern city from Cincinnati, and caus- 
ing the latter to build the road to Chattanooga (1874-80) which she leased to 
the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway (1881). 

West of the Mississippi, the line from Hannibal to St. Joseph was built 
in 1859, and the line from Galena to Council Bluffs in 1866. In 1869, (the 
year in which the Suez canal was opened), at Promontory Point (Utah) the 
Union Pacific (begun at Omaha, 1863) advancing from the Bast met the 
Central Pacific (begun at Sacramento, 1863) coming from the West, com- 
pleting the first transcontinental railway. (Spearman: The Strategy of Great 
Railroads ; Semple : American History and its Geographic Conditions ; Cy 
Warman : The Story of the Railroads). 

*° The life of Crockett (born in the wilderness of Eastern Tennessee in 
1786, and killed at San Antonia, Texas, in 1836, while defending Fort 
Alamo against the troops of Santa Anna) gives a good profile view of the 
advancing westward movement, and an insight into the life and customs of 
the time. 



An Introduction 15 

The Indians were trudging toward the setting sun and fad- 
ing away into the shadows of the night." Though in the decade 
from 1840 to 1850 settlements paused at the western boundary of 
Missouri and Iowa, and the centre of population still lingered in 
West Virginia, American enterprise jumped across the plains to 
Texas, the Rockies and the Pacific. 

In 1842 John C. Fremont^' was selected by the President to 
explore the South Pass as an aid to emigration to Oregon and 
with Kit Carson^ for his guide began a series of four expedi- 



" In 1820 the Chickasaw claim to the territory of Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky between the Tennessee and the Mississippi was extinguished. In 1834 
Indian Territory was erected as a district separate from Arkansas. Prom 1830 
to 1840, the titles of the Choctaws and Chickasaws (in Miss.) and of the 
Cherokees and Creeks (in Georgia and Alabama) were extinguished. 

In 1832, the government purchased from the Black Hawk Indians the 
territory reaching fifty miles west of the Mississippi and lying between the 
Des Moines river and the line west from the mouth of the Wisconsin. In 1837 
the western boundary was further extended by a new purchase from the 
Sacs and Foxes. ■^ 

In 1824 Monroe had proposed to colonize the Indians of New York and 
the northwest territory in Wisconsin territory, where he thought the increas- 
ing white population would not disturb them for many years, but the Indian 
frontier receded so rapidly in front of the white population rolling toward 
the shores of the Pacific that both Wisconsin and Iowa, twenty years later, 
were almost ready to knock for admission into the union. 

-' In 1838-40, Fremont had assisted the French astronomer and geogra- 
pher, J. N. Nicollet, in explorations which resulted in the discovery of the 
true source of the Mississippi river. On his return to Washington he had met 
Senator Benton, and also his daughter Jessie, whom he married October 
19, 1841. 

" Christopher Carson (born in Kentucky, 1809, but removed to Missouri 
in 1810) was a pathfinder long before Fremont. Inheriting his grandfather's 
love for "out of doors," in 1826 he left home and crossed the plains to Santa 
Fe. In 1827 he was at Taos and at El Paso. In 1829 he went to Chihuahua 
then to the copper mines on the Gila and back to Taos. In 1829 he accom- 
panied Ewing Young on a trip westward by the grand canon of the Colorado 
and across the untrailed interior desert to San Gabriel Mission and the San 
Joaquin and Sacramento rivers in California. He returned the same year 
by the Colorado and the Gila and reached Santa Fe in April, 1830 — at the 
age of 21 years. In the fall of 1830, he went with a party to the south 
branch of the Platte and over the Rockies to the Green river, then back 
across the range to Jackson's Hole, and then west to the Salmon river where 
he spent the winter. In 1831 he visited the Bear river, the Green, the plains 
of Laramie, the south fork of the Platte and spent the winter on the Arkansas. 
In 1832 he moved to the Laramie, to the South fork of the Platte, and returned 
to Taos. In October, 1832, he started again, visited White river. Green river, 
and spent the winter on the "Windy" river. In 1833 he was again on the 
Laramie, the headwaters of the Missouri, the Yellowstone, the Big Horn, and 
other rivers. From 1834 to 1842 he was the hunter for Bent's Ford on the 



16 American Expansion Policy 

tions'" which experienced many hardships, privations, dangers and 
struggles,^' but were very useful in their influence on American 
expansion. 

In 1845 Texas, through the influence of its American popu- 
lation, became a state of the Union, and its western wing pointed 



Arkansas. In 1842 he visited his old home on the Missouri, and went to St. 
Louis, where he met Fremont. He was with Fremont the greater part of 
1842-46, on the expedition to Fort Laramie and South Pass ; then on the great 
valuable transcontinental expedition of 4,000 miles via Bent's Fort, the Platte, 
the Sweetwater, Salt Lake, Fort Hall (Idaho), to Columbia, thence southward 
on the terrible freezing, starving journey to Thlamath Lake (Oregon), Pyramid 
Lake (Nev.), and finally to Sutter's Fort (2,000 miles from Fort Hall), and 
on the return trip via the San Jose valley over the Sierras to the Mogave 
river and thence to Bent's Fort; and (in 1845) on the expedition via Great 
Salt Lake and the Carson river to Sutter's Fort (and then to the Thlamath 
country in Oregon and back to California to participate in the operations of 
the Mexican war). 

On September 15, 1846, he started horseback to Washington, D. C, to 
bear dispatches, but on October 6 turned back to guide General Kearney to 
California. In March, 1847, he started again (via the Gila, New Mexico and 
the Arkansas) and reached Washington in three months after a journey of 
4,000 miles. Receiving an appointment as lieutenant of the rifle corps of 
the United States Army, he returned to Monterey with dispatches. In 1848 
he again made the trip to Washington and return. Then for a while he led 
the life of a rancher, fifty miles west of Taos. In 1850 he took fifty mules 
to. Fort Laramie (500 miles), beginning the "Long Trail" later famous for 
the cattle trade. In 1851 he tried the Santa Fe trail with goods purchased 
at St. Louis, but the life was too tame for him. Then he went with a party 
of old whitehaired men to the heart of the Rockies and on the Arkansas, 
Green and Grand rivers, on a last farewell trapping and hunting expedition, 
for he knew the old life was disappearing. In 1853 he drove 6,500 sheep to 
California, which he found had been transformed since 1848. In 1854 he was 
appointed Indian agent at Taos for the Utahs and Apaches, and did valuable 
service. In t-he Civil War he served the United States in New Mexico and 
Indian Territory, and especially against the Confederates in Texas. He was 
colonel of a regiment of N. M. volunteers and later was breveted brigadier- 
general. He died at Fort Lyon, Colorado, in 1868. 

3° (1) To South Pass and Fremont's Peak, 1842; (2) by the Santa Fe 
trail to Bent's Fort (near La Junta, Col.), thence northward to St. Vrain's 
Fort (near Denver), the Bear river, the Great Salt Lake basin, across to the 
Columbia and the Pacific, then southward to the Sacramento and Sutter's 
Fort, along the San Joaquin, then westward skirting the Great Basin and 
exploring Great Salt Lake, to the north and south branches of the Platte, 
down the Arkansas and to Kansas city, 1843-44; (3) to attempt to find a 
nearer route across the Great Basin into California, suitable for a railroad to 
San Francisco, 1845-47 ; (4) to find a practicable route to the Pacific through 
the valley of the Rio Grande, 1848-49. 

^' Thwaites ; Rocky Mountain Exploration ; Hough : The Way to the 
West. 



An Inteoduction 17 

toward California. The Anglo-Saxon foot was marching toward 
the Pacific along the routes'"^ of the pathfinders and by the stations 



■'- It is very interesting to study the evolution and influence of the great 
transcontinental trails. In 1804 a trader from Kaskaskia reached Santa Fe 
by following the south branch of the Platte to the Rockies. In 1806 Lieutenant 
Z. M. Pike outlined the historic Santa Fe trail along the Arkansas westward, 
and thence southward. In time the route was much shortened by leaving 
Arkansas just beyond the present Dodge City and striking southwest across 
the desert to the Cimarron river. The Santa Fe trade became well organized 
by 1824. In 1810, St. Louis was the last outfitting point for traders, but 
by 1831 it was Independence, and later Westport and Kansas City. The Santa 
Fe trail began at Independence. 

To the west from Santa Fe, the trappers became the pioneers. They 
early opened a route to California via the Gila, and then the Spanish trail 
via the Virgin river and the Mohave desert. In 1832 J. O. Pattie of Ken- 
tucky, who had gone with his father from the Missouri (near Omaha) to 
Santa Fe, and between 1824 and 1830 has visited the Gila, the Colorado, 
Lower California, the headwaters of the Big Horn and the Yellowstone (seek- 
ing furs and enduring wounds and imprisonment from ferocious savages and 
Spanish Mexicans in the true spirit of frontiersmen), published a personal 
narration of adventure which increased the desire to explore and trade. 

After the expedition of Lewis and Clark up the Missouri and across to the 
Columbia, 4,000 miles, in 1804-06, the advance of traders up the western 
streams increased rapidly, and trading stations at the head of the streams 
became way stations in the western movement. In 1810 the Astor land party 
shortened the route to Oregon by leaving the Missouri at the mouth of Grand 
river and taking a near cut via the Big Horn and the Wind rivers. Some 
of the party returned to St. Louis by the Sweetwater and Platte rivers, fol- 
lowing in the main the route which was later called the Oregon trail (about 
2,400 miles long). In 1824 Ashby followed this route westward to the Green 
river, and to Utah lake, where he founded Fort Ashley (1825). In 1826-29 
there were 600 trappers in the region of the Teton mountains and the Green 
river. By 1829, wheels were taking the place of saddles on the Oregon trail. 
In 1832, Wyeth with his unpractical equipment of men unlearned in the 
lessons of the wilderness, traveled over the route. In 1834 Methodist enthus- 
iasts traversed it to found an American colony in Willamette, and in 1835 
equally enthusiastic Presbyterians followed it. In 1839 two small parties 
from Illinois began the movement over it from the middle west. Then, in 
spite of many obstacles and hardships, the dust continued to thicken on the 
trail via the Soi)th Pass (7,490 ft.) the divide on the east of the Bear river 
(8,230 ft.), to Fort Hall, then for 300 miles across the desert along the Snake 
river and via Fort Boise to Walla Walla on the Columbia. The route from 
Independence to Fort Hall (1,200 miles) was comparatively easy, but the 300 
miles of desert, the 250 miles of dangerous navigation, and other difficulties, 
severely tested the character of the immigrants. It was often necessary to 
abandon property. Many turned back, and only the fittest survived at the end 
of the journey of four months. 

In 1841, Bidwell and Bartleson left the Oregon trail at Bear river and 
via the Sonora pass (10,115 ft.) reached the San Joaquin river; and by 1844, 
the California trail via the Truckee pass (7,017 ft.) to Sutter's Fort and the 
Sacramento river was discovered. Though at the end of 1845 there were only 
680 Americans in California, immigrants were rapidly increasing and began 
to include women and children. 



18 American Expansion Policy 

of the traders and trappers, marking its path with schools, legis- 
lative halls, mills, meeting-houses and printing-presses. 

In Polk's administration many state legislatures sent resolu- 
tions to Congress favoring a railway to the Pacific on the plan 
proposed by Asa Whitney.^^ 

Man was winning in the fight against physical difficulties and 
was harnessing nature for his use. The substitution of anthracite 
coal for charcoal revolutionized the iron industry. An era of un- 
precedented prosperity and industrial expansion resulted from 
the invention of utilitarian labor-saving devices, the growth of 
population, the increase in immigration, the extension of rail- 
ways, the abrogation of the English corn laws, the discovery of 
gold in California and the occupation of the western lands (espe- 
cially after the permanent preemption act of 1841). Improved 
systems of communication, which later effected greatly the thought 
and the development of the country, were in process of evolution. 
Steam and the telegraph were bringing people into closer com- 
munication. The horse of iron and other bonds of commerce 
were more and more binding the West to the East. Swamps had 
been transformed into cities as if by magic. Emigration never 
stopped, the moving stream of life propelled by an everlasting 
desire to get bread, and to get married, continued to flow west- 
ward and kept the arteries of American society injected with 
vigor. During the hot days of August, 1847, while Scott was 
pushing his way toward the Mexican capital, the trains of the 
Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railway day after day were filled with 
German emigrants. Population was rolling so restlessly and so 
swiftly toward the West that some had feared that the unbridled 
rush into the wilderness would lead to semi-barbarism. After 
the Mexican War, when we crossed the Sierras and "flung out the 
banner of the Republic to the gentle breezes of the Peaceful Sea," 
the discovery of gold''* in California induced a mighty flood of the 



In 1843, the sturdy, experienced westerners, with their families, went 
forward to make settlements in Oregon, and soon removed the local stamp of 
East and the Hudson Bay Company and replaced it with a larger Ameri- 
canism. By 1845 they had formed settlements of 8,000 people and were 
overflowing southward along the trapper pack-mule trail to northera 
California. 

^ Sen. Misc Docs. 30-1, Nos. 1, 4, 5, 18, 28, 29, 58, 76, 77, and 124. 

** Sparks : Expansion of the American People, chap. 28. Ten years later 
(1858) the discovery of gold in Colorado at the preseat site of Denver pro- 
duced another race across the plains for the Pike's Peak country. In the 
early sixties gold was discovered in Idaho and Montana. 



Ax Introduction 19 

world's adventurers from Mexico, the Sandwich Islands, Australia 
and Europe as well as from America to make a long journey on 
the ocean, or an excited rush across the Isthmus or across the 
plains and through the portals of the Rockies,^^ in order to reach 
the hitherto silent valley at Sacramento. The new commonwealth 
of California was soon ready for admission into the Union, and 
America had become a candle lighted at both ends. The Panama^ 
railroad was soon begun and the stern hand of historic necessity 
pointed to the realization of Goethe's dream of an inter-oceanic 
canal across the Isthmus. 

Pierce took the presidential chair at a period of the world's 
history teeming with significant events. The power of the Amer- 
ican Union convoyed our commerce to the farthest isles of the 
broadest ocean and was unlocking the gates of the Orient to our 
friendly intercourse. Beginning with the Anglo-Chinese war of 
1840, a series of events combined to stimulate the American ship- 
building industry and to give American sailing vessels the fore- 
most place as ocean carriers. American foreign commerce was 
greatly increased by the European revolutions of 1848, the Crimean 
war of 1853-56, and by the later Sepoy rebellion in India in 1857. 
The enormous emigration to California and to Australia led to 
an unprecedented passenger traffic at fabulous prices. 

Internal development continued to receive additional stimulus, 
under the American system and before 1860 was diverting capital 
from investments in ocean merchant marine and foreign trade. 



'= The principal route was by the Platte, South Pass, Fort Hall, the 
Snake river and the Humboldt. (Parkman : The Oregon Trail.) 

In 1847 Brigham Young, fleeing from the hostile Gentiles, led the Mor- 
mons to Salt Lake, where he hoped to find an isolated asylum. But the gold 
hunters soon began to pass their doors. By the end of 1848 there were 6,000 
men in the California gold fields. During the spring and summer of 1849, 
about 27,000 men. and 15,000 wagons were ferried across the Missouri at 
the towns between Independence and Council Bluffs, and for the next year 
the number was four times as large. In 1849, a traveler counted 459 wagons 
in ten miles along the Platte (the cholera epidemic caused the death of over 
5,000 immigrants along the Missouri). A monthly mail-route was soon opened 
to the Pacific via Salt Lake, and in 1858 (after the Mormon rebellion) a 
weekly service was opened to Salt Lake. Another route was opened by the 
Santa Fe trail to Albuquerque. 

** The Panama railroad, begun in 1849 in the face of many obstacles 
and diflJculties, was not completed until 1855. The road cost about $8,000,000, 
but in the first twelve years of its existence it carried $750,000,000 worth of 
gold and 300.000 bags of mail. 



20 American Expansion Policy 

The bowed-down of the earth were arising, foreigners were arriv- 
ing from Europe by hundreds of thousands each year, and many 
passed toward the vast unoccupied territory to obtain their bread 
from nature's table. In 1853, the hard times in Germany and the 
failure of the potato crop in Ireland sent over two large streams 
of emigrants. Columbus had begged bread for his child at the 
gate of a convent, but the land which he discovered now provided 
"employment and food for starving nations and a home for fugi- 
tive races" who were to assist in the formation of great common- 
v/ealths west of the Mississippi. 

About 1850, the railroads began to develop a serious rivalry 
to water transportation, and at the same time they were complet- 
ing the economic integration of East and Middle West." The first 
railway to the Mississippi reached Rock Island in 1854 and others 
reached it before 1860. By them the old East was being slowly 
introduced to the vast West whose value had not been realized in 
an earlier age of local feeling. By 1859, a railway reached St. 
Joseph on the Missouri two thousand miles from California. 

In 1860 mail-bags were speeding over 2,000 miles of hostile 
country, across plains and alkali deserts, through canons and 
over mountain passes, from St. Joseph to Sacramento, by the 
newly established "pony express"'* whose brief life, crowded with 
thrilling episodes, was ended in 1862 when the telegraph line was 
completed across the continent to California. Soon steps were 



^' There had been a gradual diversion of the western trade toward the 
east by the lakes and Brie canal route since 1836, but it was not until about 
1845 that the south awakened to the situation and endeavored to take some 
counter-action to prevent the diversion. At the southwestern convention on 
November 13, 1845, Calhoun wisely, though not consistently, declared that 
the Mississippi river is an inland ocean and as such is as much entitled to 
the care of the general government as Lake Erie or the Chesapeake Bay ; and 
he planned a system of railways uniting the Mississippi with Savannah and 
Charleston, which he invited the government to aid by laud grants and remis- 
sion of duties on railroad iron. (Am. Whig Rev. vol. 5, p. 238, March, 1847.) 

5' The organizers of the "express" bought 600 bronchoes, hired 75 light- 
weight riders and established relay stations at intervals of 100 miles on the 
plains and 40 miles in the mountains. The first trip (April, 1860) from St. 
Joseph was made in 10 days. The quickest trip (December, 1860) was made 
in eight and a half days. Several riders were killed by Indians, and two 
were frozen to death. One man, finding no one to relieve him, rode 284 miles 
in 18 hours. Riders left both St. Joseph and Sacramento every day except 
Sunday. The charge for letters was $5 for each ounce. (Col. Henry Inman : 
"The Great Salt Lake Trail;" Mark Twain: "Roughing it"; Cy Warman : 
"Story of the Railroad.") 



An Introduction • 21 

taken to establish lines of steamers across the Pacific, and tele- 
graphic communication with the Far East.^" 

The war for the preservation of the Union marks a turning 
point in American development. It was the beginning of a period 
of economic and political integration — of better industrial and so- 
cial organization. Agriculture was greatly improved and stimu- 
lated by a series of events: the unprecedented "introduction of the 
reaper and other labor saving machinery and the extention of the 
railroad system in the grain region of the Northwest; the intro- 
duction of the "new process" roller flour mills; the Homestead 
Act; the transition to careful intensive cultivation in the East; 
the improvement in methods of transporting and handling the 
grain; the increased foreign demand which made the United 
States the chief producer and exporter of breadstuffs and grains; 
and finally, after a period of adjustment of serious problems re- 
sulting from the war, the gradual substitution of the improved 
small farm system and diversified industries at the South in place 
of the old wasteful plantation system which had been destroyed. 
This improvement continued till agriculture has become a busi- 
ness instead of a mere occupation for subsistence. The war, by 
practically cutting off foreign intercourse, also hastened greatl;^ 
the growth of domestic manufactures which have had such a re- 
markable development since 18S0. 

At the close of the war of secession the re-united nation stood 
upon its feet with a confidence and character strengthened by 
recent experience, ready to meet the problems of the future. It 
had felt its way hesitatingly along untried paths, while communi- 
cation had been growing swifter and more intimate, and the ne- 
cessity for union had grown stronger. The experience of cen- 
turies had been crowded into a few generations. A strong nation 
with wide bounds had been built and had suffered only four years 
of civil dissension. The people had increased fifteen-fold in the 
century, and still the throngs of emigrants were coming to the 
land of fruitful soil, genial climes, and liberal institutions, where 
they could own their homes and enjoy free labor, prosperity and 
an atmosphere of toleration. Though there was a decline in the 
American merchant marine, the railroads and other means of in- 
ternal communication developed upon an unprecedented scale after 



^ By February, 1861, a congressional committee reported in favor of 
surveys for a proposed telegraph from Oregon via Bering Sea to the mouth 
of the Amoor river •which, in 1860, had been opened to free trade from its 
source to the sea. 



22 American Expansion Policy 

the war to keep pace with the industrial growth and internal 
commerce. In the far West where the engineer had become the 
pioneer, by 1869 a railway to the Pacific*" had taken the place 
of the pony express, and the disenchanting pant and screech of 
the locomotive broke the spell of the weird mysterious mountains, 
and once a day, announced the arrival of settlers to fill up the 
space left vacant in the earlier rush for California, to hasten the 
extermination of the buffalo and prepare the way for the era of 
cattle and the cowboy from Texas to Montana." Later, the brief 
era of the cowboy gave way to the era of the farmer and barbed 
wire fences, and the fertile prairies of the West became the food 
producing region for the older states. 



**' The road was built by the aid of subsidies from the national govern- 
ment. These were granted in 1862 and later for the primary purpose of 
strengthening the Union which was then in the midst of a momentous struggle 
against secession. It was urged that the road would bind the far west to 
the Union, and enable the United States more promptly to repel attacks on 
Pacific coasts, to control Indian outbreaks and to end the Mormon question. 
Surveys had been commenced as early as 1853. On January 8, 1863, Leiand 
Stanford (b. 1824, d. 1893) turned the first earth for the Central Pacific at 
Sacramento. On December 2, 1863, ground was broken for the Union Pacific 
at Omaha, with a florid speech by George Francis Train. The race started 
slowly with many diflicultles and dangers, but the large subsidies offered by 
the law of 1866 induced each company to strain every nerve in order to reach 
Salt Lake before its rival. The completion of the Chicago and Northwestern 
to Council Bluffs, on November 7, 1867, greatly aided the Union Pacific in 
securing materials and enabled it to push beyond Salt Lake to Promontory 
Point, Utah, before its track-layers met those of the Central Pacific in the 
spring of 1869. The spirit of the race was intense near the close, and 
aroused the Mormons to participate. On May 10, the final scene of this great 
American epic was enacted when the first engine from the Pacific met the 
first one from the Atlantic and Leiand Stanford of California drove the last 
spike in the presence of an assembled crowd representing all classes who had 
participated in the undertaking — regular soldiers who had acted as military 
guard to the builders, the coolies and the Irish tracklayers ; the border ruf- 
fians, gamblers, and venders of "bad medicine ;" the Mormons ; and the gentle- 
men in frock coats. Bret Harte furnished the poem for the occasion ("What 
the Engines said"). The whole country, at a signal from the telegraph of- 
fices, became wild in the excitement of rejoicing, while the bells rang in Inde- 
pendence Hall. (Spearman: The Strategy of great Railroads; Cy Warman : 
"The Story of the Railroad;" Sparks: The Expansion of the American People, 
chap. 30; John P. Davis: "The Union Pacific Railroad;" Robert L. Steven- 
son: "Across the Plains"). 

*^ The routes over which the cattle were driven from Texas northward 
developed into the "Long Trail," over 2,000 miles in length, through Indian 
territory, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, with branches to Utah 
and Nevada, and to Iowa and Illinois. 



An Inteoduction 23 

The completion of the first transcontinental railway — a na- 
tional enterprise in comparison with which the Cumberland road 
was insignificant — inaugurated a new epoch in the development of 
the West, and in the history of the Nation. With the aid of na- 
tional land grants, and at great cost and sacrifice, new trans-con- 
tinental railways were pushed westward from the Mississippi in 
advance of the population. These roads were important factors in 
later American development. They enabled home-seekers to reach 
the new lands at far less cost and inconvenience than in the days 
of the prairie schooner. They contributed greatly to the indus- 
trial and political integration of the nation, to the realization of 
American destiny and influence in the Pacific and in the Orient, 
and also to the nationalization of problems which had hitherto 
been local in scope and importance but which have since needed 
the more efficient application of public regulation. The same na- 
tional spirit which induced the government to aid transportation, 
by grants of federal subsidies to the Pacific railways, also caused 
it to increase the appropriations for rivers and harbors, to grant 
subsidies to a trans-pacific steamship line, to consider means for 
reviving the trans-atlantic merchant marine, and to undertake 
the construction of the great trans-isthmian inter-oceanic water- 
way which solves a transportation problem of the centuries and 
will doubtless prove a very potent factor in determining the future 
history and destiny of America. 

11. Di-eams of Continental Occupation. 

The Romulus of the United States surrounded it with no 
furrow, and continental occupation has been an undying dream 
with many since the nation was born." In 1787, Gouverneur 
Morris thought that all North America would finally be an- 
nexed." About the same time, Jefferson, who had already fore- 
seen the possible independence of all America, feared that Spain's 
American possessions would fall away from her before we were 
ready for them. For reasons both political and philosophical he 
made inquiries regarding the possibilities of a canal through the 
Isthmus of Panama, which had so long served as the bulwark of 
China and Japan.^* On November 24, 1801, in writing to Monroe 



" The Indians, with the idea that the American people had a voracity 
for land, after St. Clair's defeat stuffed the mouths of the dead full of earth. 

*^ Jefferson's Works, vol. 1, p. 518. 

*• Jefferson to Carmichael, December 15, 1787 Ford's Jefferson, vol. 4, 
p. 473 ; vol. 5, p. 22. 



24 American Expansion Policy 



on the subject of establishing a penal negro colony in America, 
Jefferson said: "However our present interests mav restrain, us 
within our limits it is impossible not to look forward to distant 
times, when our rapid multiplication shall expand itself beyond 
those- limits and cover the whole northern, if not the southern, 
continent."*' About the same time, and several years later. Dr. 
William Thornton, who doubtless exerted considerable influence 
on both Madison and Monroe, advocated the idea of extending the 
republican system over all North and South America and the ad- 
jacent islands, under thirteen distinct sections but united by one 
central government on the Isthmus. On the healthy hills near 
Panama was to be erected the great city called America, connected 
with both the Atlantic and the Pacific by a great canal, and a 
center from which all longitudes were to be calculated.'" 

Sumter, who was sent to Brazil in 1809 when the court cf 
Portugal was removed to America (and v, hen events seemed to 
indicate that the European system in America was approaching 
its end), in November, 1S12, after the opening of the war with 
England, began to suggest that the United States should seize op- 
portunity by the forelock and extend her policy so as to embrace 
all the strength and influence of America — increasing her import- 
ance on this continent by political and commercial association, 
and endeavoring to prevent the inhabitants from exhausting them- 
selves in long conflicts which would only leave them in a situation 
to submit to Europe.*' In 1816 T. L. Halsey, writing Monroe that 
Buenos Ayres. in order to get aid, would probably be willing to 
place itself under the direction of the United States, said: "It 
would appear to be the policy of the United States that the whole 
continent of America should be united, at least in commercial re- 
lations.' *' 

In March, 1818, Monroe received from Joseph Codina a plan 
for separating Spanish America from Spain and making it free 
under the protection of the United States. This plan proposed a 
coalition for defense and urged that the American government for 
safety and convenience should take the territory as far south as 



*^ Jefferson's Works, vol. 4, p. 420 ; Ford, vol. 8, p. 104. 

*' William Thornton : Outlines of constitution for North and South Co- 
lumbia. Washington, 1815. 

" 1 T. Sumter (Rio Janiero) to Monroe, cipher No. 1 

■** 1 Consular Letter.? (Buenos Ayres). 



An Introduction 25 

the Isthmus of Panama "the point which in the judgment of every 
sensible man is destined by God and Nature to be the limits of 
the United States." "If the United States lose the present oppor- 
tunity to take possession of the Isthmus," said he, "the people 
of America will one day lament in tears and blood the fatal omis- 
sion. "^'•' 

At this time one finds frequent suggestions of the idea of es- 
tablishing an understanding or co-operation between the parts of 
the Americas upon a variety of subjects of general concern. 

In 1818, Henry M. Brackenridge, who had been secretary of 
the South American commission, in a paper addressed to Monroe 
said: "The United States will be the natural head of the New 
World." Though he v/as not an advocate of the "Great Americaa 
Congress on the Isthmus ' he agreed that under certain contin- 
gencies (if England should send a fleet to put us down) we 
should "drive Spain from the continent, and form a chain of con- 
federacies with the Patriots."-'' 

In 1819 John Quincy Adams, stating that the world v/as to 
be familiarized with the idea that the dominion of the United 
States was to be the continent of North America, said: "From 
the time when we became an independent people, it was as much 
a law of nature that this should become our pretention as that 
the Mississippi should flow to the sea." Later he spoke of Cuba 
and Porto Rico as natural appendages of the North American 
Continent, and as naturally gravitating toward us without our aid. 
Barbe Marbois, the French diplomat who negotiated with Monroe 
and Livingston for the sale of Louisiana, writing in 1828 of the 
phenomenal growth of the United States under republican institu- 
tions, and of the germs of future states on the Columbia, stated 
that, though Congress had not announced its purpose to extend 
the Union to the Pacific, there could be no doubt that by a general 
impulse the American system was about to embrace the whole of 
the New World. The United States Magazine and Democratic 
Revieiv of October, 1847, contains the following: "This occupa- 
tion of territory by the people is the great movement of the age, 
and, until every acre of the American continent is occupied by 
citizens of the United States, the foundation of the future empire 
will not have been laid."" John Bright, in a speech at Birming- 
ham, December, 1862, said: "I see one vast confederation stretch- 

** Monroe papers, vol. xvii, p. 2137. 

=" Pamphleteer, vol. 13, 1818. London. 

^' Also see U. S. Review, February, 1853, pp. 1 and 173 et scq ; and also 
March, 1853, pp. 193-206. "The Monroe Doctrine vs. the Clayton-Bulwer 
Treaty." 



26 Amekicax Expansion Policy 

ing from the frozen North in unbroken line to the glowing South, 
and from the wild billows of the Atlantic westward to the calmer 
waters of the Pacific main — a refuge for the oppressed of every 
race and clime." Again, in June, 1863, in Parliament, he spoke 
of all America under one government. Viscount Milton, M. P., in 
a book published at London, in 1869, on the San Juan boundary 
question, said that the rapid expansion of the people of the United 
States and the accession of new states was consistent with the 
Monroe doctrine, and that the conception that American institu- 
tions were to overspread the continent had been recently illus- 
trated by the purchase of Alaska and by overtures for the pur- 
chase of Hudson Bay territory. Henry Gannett, in a recent volume 
on "The Building of a Nation," wrote: "Our preponderance over 
the other nations of the North American continent will, ere long, 
draw them into our body-politic; our descendants will be citizens 
of a republic whose dominions will extend from Greenland to 
Panama . . . migration to Canada, Mexico and the Central 
American States which have never prospered under their present 
forms of government will receive a great stimulus when these 
countries become integral parts of the Republic." 



m. A Brief Sketch of the Annerican Policy of Territorial 
Extension. 

Expansion of national territory, which in our earlier history 
was a steady policy, has, with few exceptions, arisen from the 
necessity of meeting internal difficulties and political and econ- 
omic questions, and probably was inevitable. Although the oppo- 
sition to slavery was an obstacle to expansion, the Southern de- 
sire to extend this institution was an important factor in all the 
acquisitions and the demands for expansion from 1820 to 1860. 
Jealousy or fear in regard to the plans of England also exerted 
no inconsiderable influence in determining the policy of the Unitei 
States to incorporate Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California, Oregon 
and Alaska. The acquisition of Cuba, Yucatan, and Hawaii were 
urged long ago upon the same ground. Although some acquisi- 
tions have been made by war the greater part have been obtained 
under the desire to prevent war. The American policy, with few 
exceptions, has been to negotiate directly with the governments 
exercising authority over the territory desired. Territory after 
territory has been incorporated into a great Union notwithstand- 
ing both domestic and foreign opposition, and the national flag 
has been carried onward to the Rio Grande and the Pacific. Not- 
withstanding the pessimistic prophesies in which the opposition 



An I NTRooucTiopf 27 

indulged at each expansion of our domains, the republic still lives, 
and all now agree that the extension of our national limits to the 
gulf and the remote Pacific added strength to the Union. 

Even in the dark days of the Revolution there was a buoyant 
American spirit urging that the Union should include Canada, 
and even Florida; and American expansion began with Clark's 
invasion of the Northwest in 1778. In the peace of 1783, Amer- 
ican diplomats were successful in securing the extension of our 
boundary to the Mississippi and in obtaining much territory that 
was then unknown. 

The constitution did not expressly provide for annexation of 
territory, but it appears that such annexation v/as foreseen. In 
1791, Jefferson, acting as secretary of state under Washington, was 
contemplating the acquisition of additional territory from Spain. 
Washington, however, while the West was pressing for the navi- 
gation of the Mississippi river, and restless spirits threatened to 
join the expeditions of Genet, Clarke, and Blount, against Louisiana 
■and Florida, feared that access to the ocean by way of the Gulf 
would, by lessening the connection with the Bast, lead to the es- 
tablishment of separate nations by the states between the Missis- 
sippi and the mountains. Hamilton and others had designs against 
Spanish America which might have led to the extension of the 
United States toward the southwest, but they were opposed by 
President Adams. 

The West, stating that "the Mississippi is ours by the law 
of nature" was ready to enforce the claim even at the risk of 
•breaking from allegiance to the national government which did 
not yet know its own strength, and Jefferson, the great American 
^expansionist, v/ho had long before favored exploration to the Pa- 
cific, and, at the beginning of Washington's administration, had 
made an effort to acquire Florida and New Orleans, driven by 
necessity and accident, before he knew exactly what he was doing, 
In 1803, began our policy of peaceful expansion by the purchase 
of a vast empire, setting our bounds to the Rockies, bringing 
doubtful titles to Florida, Texas and Oregon, and making further 
expansion necessary and a great united nation possible. His ex- 
ample was followed long after his authority ceased. Madison, 
from apparent necessity, took temporary control of tlie Gulf shores 
from the Mississippi to the Mobile, and, in the War of 1812, 
planned expeditions for the conquest of Canada. Monroe, for the 
same reason, seized Amelia island and Galveston, finally extended 
our domains to the Florida straits, and said that the acquisition 
■of Cuba might become necessary to our internal tranquility as 
well as to our prosperity and aggrandizement. 



28 American Expansion Policy 

By the time the United States had received all the Floridas 
she was preparing to make settlements on the far-away Columbia. 
She was invited to aid South America, Cuba and Greece" and had 
opportunities to obtain new acquisitions. She refused to encour- 
age the wishes of the Guatamalans-'^ and Cubans for annexation 
to the American Union, and did not desire the acquisition of the 
Ionian or other islands in the Mediteranean.^ Though Jefferson 
was opposed to any annexation that would require the construc- 
tion of a navy to defend it, he was willing to move the national 
boundary stones to southern shores of "ever faithful" Cuba. John 
Quincy Adams, who 1820 suggested the occupation of territory in 



^^ Webster and Clay, stating that the United States must take an active 
part in all that is done in the world, said that we might even recognize the 
Philippine Islands if they should set up an independent government. 

^' In December, 1822, the congress of San Salvador (one of the states of 
Guatemala) to avoid being joined to Mexico under the rule of Yturbides, pro- 
posed annexation to the United States as a state. Don Manuel Arce and Don 
Juan M. Rodriguez were appointed commissionrs with full powers. They 
reached Washington in September, 1823, and delivered their communications 
to Mr. Daniel Brent of the Department of State. Secretary J. Q. Adams was 
in Boston and did not return until a month later. In the meantime a revolu- 
tion in Mexico had overthrown Yturbides, and his republican successors had 
acknowledged the right of the people of Guatemala to institute a government 
for themselves. Thus there was no longer any urgent reason for seeking 
union with the United States. Alfred Williams in his book, "The Interoceanic 
Canal and the Monroe Doctrine," says the acceptance of the proffered annex- 
ation of Central America "would have given the U. S. a door of the seas ^nd 
forever solved the problem of the control of the interoceanic canal." Secretary 
Adams was especially interested in Central America. In 1824 he appointed 
Thomas N. Mann as a secret informal agent to visit Guatemala in order to 
get confidential information in regard to the territory, the population and the 
probability of its separation as a separate republic. (2 Desps. Consuls, April 
11, 1824). His interest continued after he became President. In the early 
part of 1826 Henry Clay, instructing John Williams to exchange ratifications 
of a treaty with the Federation of the Center and referring to the circum-. 
stances which gave Guatemala a special claim to the interest and regard of 
the United States, said: "Whatever obstacles there might have been in phys- 
ical relations or in the constitutional arrangements of our government to the 
proposed union (with the United States) the proposal itself and the spirit in 
which it was made were eminently adapted to inspire the warmest sentiments 
of regard and attachment." (11 Instr. Guatemala, Feb. 10, 1826.) 

^ The United States had been offered islands or footholds in the Medit- 
erranean where the question of a naval station had already engaged the atten- 
tion of the administration of Jefferson. (30 Desps. England, No. 392, July 
24, 1824; 6 De.sps. Rus. Aug. 29, 1816.) 



An Introduction 29 

the South Seas^'' and foresaw American destiny in the West Indies, 
later announced that he was inclined to seek no acquisition not 
contiguous to the continent. He and Jackson both made efforts 
to purchase Texas which had been given up in 1819, and Jackson 
wished to acquire territory that would include the bay of San 
Francisco on the Pacific, but they exhibited no desire to secure 
insular possessions. In 1831, a writer in the North American 
Review said that "Popular opinion would be as strongly estab- 
lished against the suggestion of either a voluntary or a forcible 
cession beyond our territorial limits, as it would be if the execu- 
tive were to recommend a league with the Pope for the conquest 
of the Holy Land." 

But the natural course of events was already preparing for 
extension along the Gulf toward the Rio Grande and, in 1837-8. 
there were citizens along the northern frontier who were anxious 
to aid the patriots to secure Canadian independence as a step 
toward annexation. Texas had ceased to be an independent bar- 
rier; and the fact that it had largely been settled by American 
frontiersmen led to quarrels which resulted in an independent 
state and finally enabled Polk (who also f avoided the annexation 
of Alaska) to move the boundary-stones to the fickle Rio Grande, 
carry civilization to the Golden Gate and the Pacific, and lay the 
foundations for making the United States a great railway nation. 
Calhoun said future acts in the drama had become uncertain. 
When Walker, in Polk's Cabinet, in 1847, urged the retention of 
all Mexico, Calhoun, fearing it would be free territory, strongly 
opposed and induced the administration to refrain from making 
exorbitant demands; but enough was secured to enable the United 
States to become an arbiter in the affairs of the Pacific."*' 

Then began a twelve-year period of pro-slavery land-hunger, 
in which there were schemes for getting control of more of Spain's 
former domains in the direction of Central America and Mexico. 
Many prominent men advocated the acquisition of isthmian and 
insular possessions, urging that the United States should hold 
the gate to the Pacific and the keys which controlled it. Buchanan 



" In 1820 Adams was fascinated with the idea of starting a new contro- 
versy with England, and recommended to Monroe a project for occupying and 
colonizing an island (or iceberg) in the South Sea in latitude 61° 40' (28 
Monroe Papers, August 26, 1820). 

^ The eflect of the acquisition of California on relations with other na- 
tions on the Pacific was discussed at the time by several American diplomats 
in their dispatches to the department of state (e. g. 8 Desps. Peru, John 
Randolph Clay, No. 27, June 12, 1849). 



30 American Expansion Policy 

and others opposed the Clayton-Bulwer treaty because it restricted 
the right of occupying territory which might become necessary 
for the security of communications with our Pacific possessions. 
Cuba, especially, standing warden to the Gulf of Mexico, having 
of slavery which the south wished to see continued, and a system 
of commercial restrictions and arbitrary government which many 
others desired to see ended, became an object of anxious solicitude 
to a large party in the United States. Polk's "profoundly confi- 
dential" negotiations for the purchase of Cuba failed, and Fillmore 
considered that its incorporation would be perilous, but the plans 
for its acquisition continued to be urged. Young America, in- 
toxicated with the progress of a hundred years, and suffering from 
flights of oratory, joined hands with the slavery extensionists to 
preach from the text of '"manifest destiny." Every addition to 
the territory of the American Union had given homes to Euro- 
pean destitution and extended representative government, and it 
was now boldly proclaimed by some that the American nation 
was not to be circumscribed by narrow isthmuses and gulf streams. 
The feature v.hich characterized the foreign policy of Pierce, and 
especially that of Buchanan, was the aim to achieve the long- 
desired result of securing control in the Gulf of Mexico and the 
Americanization of the region thereabouts." 

The Pierce administration contemplated the annexation of 
Hawaii and Alaska, opened negotiations for the purchase of Cuba, 
and, while Walker'* was filibustering in lower California, sent 



" Douglas in the Senate said that in spite of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty 
the United States might some time find it necessary to extend American laws 
to Central America, which was only "half way" on the road to California. 
(31 Cong. Globe, 32-2 and 3, March 10, 1853). 

^ Walker, after his attempt on Sonora and Lower California, sailed to 
Nicaragua, where he soon obtained a controlling influence as "mayor of the 
palace." He was followed by other Americans who, "filled with military 
spirit," sought adventure. In January, 1855, Marcoletes, in a note to Secre- 
tary Marcy, protested against the "schemes * * * devised against Central 
America by these modern Phenecians who assume military titles * * * 
and grasp the sword and the musket instead of the ploughshare, the axe, and 
the shepherd's crook, thinking to make conquest of the golden fleece which 
they believed to be hung and secreted amidst the briars, forests, thickets and 
swamps * * * under the by no means attractive and seductive influence 
of a pestiferous and fever-giving atmosphere." (2 Notes from C. A. Jan. 16, 
1855). In 1856 Senator Bell of Tennessee said the Monroe doctrine had be- 
come a doctrine of progressive absorption, annexation and conquest of Spanish 
America. (41 Cong. Globe, 34-1, Feb. 26, 1856). 



An Introduction 31 

Gadsden to secure a large slice across Mexico from the Gulf to 
the ocean, but secured only the Mexican territory along the Gila 
river. Seward, though he refused to commit himself blindly to 
th^ guidance of those v.ho offered to interpret our manifest des- 
tiny, in reviewing the thickly recurring changes, the resistless 
impulses and broad oppoi-tunities of a half century, said it was 
hard to conceive how we much longer could have avoided the 
expansion which had not only brought the Antilles under our 
surveillance, but also had brought us to confront the islands and 
coasts of Asia.'' The need of coaling stations in the Pacific,"" and 
of an inter-oceanic canal had been urged, especially since the rapid 
growth of California. Commodore Perry and the American min- 
ister to China recommended the establishment of colonies in the 
Pacific at the gates of China and Japan. 

When Buchanan stepped into the shoes of Pierce he an- 
nounced expansion to be the future policy of the country. He 
continued to press the necessity of purchasing Cuba, suggested 
intervention in helpless, bleeding Mexico, where he hoped to se- 
cure additional territory; recommended the occupation of Sonora 
and Chihuahua; proposed to send land and naval forces to Cen- 
tral America in order to protect the transit route;" threatened 
the Fiji Islands, and was favorably disposed to the annexation 
of Alaska. A member of Congress said that "we should advance 
our eagles until the tread of our columns could be heard upon the 
whole continent." Our vessel of state rode upon a swollen and 
enraged tide, and Reuben Davis of Mississippi, announcing in the 
House that no anchor couid stay it, said: "If we will leave all 
subjects in which the people are directly interested to the states, 
then we may expand so as to include . . . Mexico, Central 
America, South America, Cuba, the V/est India Islands .... 
And this. Sir, is the mission of the Republic and its ultimate 
destiny." 



*' Congre-ssional Globe, June 29, 1S54 : Speech of Seward on the "Mail 
Line to China." 

"" The acquisition of the Gallipagos islands from Ecuador had been sug- 
gested in the closing weeks of Fillmore's administration. (2 Desp. Ecuador 
Gushing No. 31, March 1, 1853). 

" In 1856, after a riot at Panama, the Pierce administi-ation, in order to 
protect the transportation of persons and property on the isthmus, attempted 
to obtain (by treaty) from New Granada a belt of land twenty miles wide 
from ocean to ocean and certain islands in the harbors at each terminal for 
naval stations. The special mission was unsuccessful because the treaty wi's 
not acceptable to New Grenada. (Sen. Exec. Doc. 112, 46-2, vol. 4, pp. 8 ,/ 
and 21). 



32 American Expansion Policy 

In 1861 the storm of civil war burst forth, in its fury, and, 
by the abolition of slavery, ended the agitation for the extension 
of dominion over tropical peoples disturbed by dissension and 
strife. In December, 1861, Lincoln, using Jefferson's plea of ex- 
pediency, suggested that steps be taken to acquire tropical terri- 
tory for the colonization of free negroes. Seward found little 
chance for a policy of acquisition while he was opposing seces- 
sion and hoping to sustain the Monroe doctrine in San Domingo 
and Mexico — though in order to prevent Lower California from 
falling into the hands of the Confederates, he would have been 
willing to buy or take it as a pledge for a loan to Mexico. While 
warning Spain against beginning intervention in Spanish Amer- 
ica, and assuring her that her rights in Cuba and Porto Rico 
were respected by the United States, he significantly added that 
Cuba must not be used as a base against the American Union. 
Later in the war (1864), when Spain feared American designs 
on Samana, Seward said the United States already had enough 
territory at that time. 

It was predicted that the United States, at the close of the 
war, would embark upon a policy of conquest, and both Mexico 
and Canada feared American designs; but when Maximilian slept, 
and the Fenians blustered, the American Government showed no 
disposition to interfere with the operation of natural forces. In 
1866, the House of Representatives considered a bill for the event- 
ual annexation of the territory north of our borders. The British 
North American act followed and made the American House of 
Representatives uneasy. Seward said that "British Columbia, by 
whomsoever possessed, must be governed in conformity with the 
interests of her people and of society upon the American con- 
tinent," and some believed that he purchased incontiguous and 
distant Alaska as a step toward securing Canada and other ter- 
ritory. 

At the time of the Alaska cession there were many who 
favored further expansion. By order of the United States navy 
department, Captain William Reynolds in August, 1S67. formally 
took possession of Midway Islands. Banks and others said that 
the Pacific was the ocean of the future and that we must acquire 
Hawaii also. Ignatius Donnelly desired to carry American insti- 
tutions into the frozen constellations and to the heat of the 
tropics, letting our "foundations abut only on the everlasting 
seas." Spalding of Ohio declared that no territory was foreign 
if the United States wanted it, and Shellabarger fearing that. we 
would make our diameter so large that we could love only half 
at a time, said we should not try to stretch our arms like seas 



An Introduction 33 

to embrace the Universe. President Johnson thought that the time 
would soon come for the United States to aid in solving the po- 
litical problems of the West Indies and Hawaii, and Grant, seek- 
ing a solution to the race problem, proposed to purchase San 
Domingo; but the public mind was so much engaged with domestic 
questions that it was not considered a fitting time to "entertain 
the . . more remote questions of national extension and ag- 
grandizement." A treaty had been made with Denmark for the 
purchase of her possessions in the West Indies, but it slept in 
Sumner's desk and was never presented to the Senate for ratifi- 
cation. During the ten years of struggle between Spain and the 
Cuban revolutionists, many Americans, desiring to terminate long- 
endured inconveniences, and advocating the abolition of slavery 
in Cuba, sympathized with the insurgents, and the American Gov- 
ernment in order to secure peace was aparently ready to guar- 
antee a payment by the Cubans to Spain for their independence, 
but under the existing conditions Secretary Pish several times 
stated that the United States did not desire the island. 

Events in Hawaii threatened to precipitate the consideration 
of the expediency of its annexation, but Fish, in 1873, while re- 
flecting upon the possible necessity of future expansion into mid- 
ocean said the acquisition of territory beyond the sea met the 
opposition of discreet and influential leaders, and could not be 
adopted without grave deliberation. In 1872 and for several 
years thereafter the question of assuming control of the Samoan 
Islands as a protectorate was presented to the American Govern- 
ment, but Fish in December, 1874, doubted whether their position 
and importance "would be sufficient to satisfy the people that the 
annexation of the islands to the United States is essential to our 
safety and prosperity," and did not see the expediency of origin- 
ating a measure "adverse to the usual tradition of the govern- 
ment." Steinberger, who in 1875 gave the impression that he 
was establishing a Samoan Government under the protection of 
the United States, did so without any authority from Washing- 
ton. The United States Government did not sustain the acts of 
the consuls who raised the American flag at Apia in 1877, 1878 
and 1885. Evarts in 1877 refused to accept a protectorate over 
islands so far distant. Blaine in 1881, and Frelinghuysen in 1883 
said that the American policy tended to avoid possessions dis- 
connected with this continent, but they felt that the destiny of 
Hawaii like that of Cuba was an American question. 

Absorption of Pacific islands by European powers and the 
decline of native races induced both Blaine and Bayard to see 
the necessity, of maintaining the rights to which the United States 



34 American Expansion Policy 

had become entitled in the few unappropriated islands v/hich v/ere 
under independent and autonomous native governments. Bayard 
in 1885 informed Germany that our recorded disinclinations to 
avail ourselves of the voluntary offers of other powers to place 
themselves under our sovereignty and protection showed that we 
had no idea of acquiring control of the Carolines, but in 1S8& 
he said "if colonial acquisitions were an. announced policy of the 
United States" v/e would have an equal right with Germany or 
Great Britain to assert a claim of possession to Pacific islands. 
According to a statement of Senator Morgan, Cleveland favored 
the annexation of both Cuba and Hawaii in his first administra- 
tion, but in his messige of December, 1SS5, desiring to avoid en- 
tangling alliances he said: "I do not favor a policy of acquisi- 
tion of new and distant territory, or the incoporation of remote 
interests with our own." 

The conditions in Hawaii which caused a growing inclination 
there in favor of annexation, was preparing the way for further 
American expansion. The inevitable incorporation of Hawaii was 
only delayed by the refusal of Cleveland to accept the results of 
the revolution of 1893. While there has been no general desire 
to enter upon an aggressive policy of territorial aggrandizement, 
leaders of both parties have shown a growing opinion in favor 
of possessing distant islands for the protection and encourage- 
ment of American interests in the Pacific and the Far East — as 
well as at home. This tendency was increased as an inevitable 
consequence of the dismemberment of Spanish dominions. At the 
close of the six weeks war, the recent annexation of Hawaii had 
already decreased the value of the objection to the acquisition of 
non-contiguous territory. President McKinley, seeing that Spain 
had no money with which to pay the expense of intervention in 
Cuba, and at the same time desiring to avoid occasions for future 
collision with Spain in the West Indies, and to provide for naval 
stations and commercial interests in the Pacific, decided that the 
United States should retain Porto Rico, and the Philippines, and 
secure other islands for naval and cable stations. In making his 
ultimatum to Spain he was commended by members and news- 
papers of both parties, though he has since been opposed by a 
respectable minority. 

Recent events present many new problems for solution — in 
the West Indies, on the Isthmus, and in the Pacific. In 1887 
Froude said that it was the opinion in Cuba that "America is 
the residuary legatee" of all the West Indies, and that she will 
finally be forced to take charge of them even if she should desire 
otherwise. 



An INTEODUCTION 35 

There has been considerable discussion In Jamaica, and in a 
conference at Barbadoes, In favor of annexation to the United 
States in case the British Government does not take action to 
assist the sugar interests in those islands. The United States has 
not countenanced this movement, but has been negotiating for 
the purchase of the Danish Islands, and has recently obtained 
control of the Panama canal zone. 



IV. The Outlook. 

Whether our new acquisitions will prove a source of weak- 
ness or of strength is a question to be proven by the future. 
Distant colonies have often been a source of weakness both in 
peace and in war, but they have often proven beneficial to both 
the governing and the governed. The United States while long 
resisting the opportunities and suggestions to establish colonies 
in the Pacific, has been forced by the application of steam to 
navigation, and by increasing commercial interests, to consider 
the question of distant bases of supply and harbors for protection. 

The annexation of Hawaii is not out of line with the evolu- 
tion of the American expansion policy. It was contemplated long 
before the Civil War when it was not near so easy of access as 
now. It is now nearer to Washington than were Florida and 
Louisiana in Jefferson's time, or Oregon and California in the 
administration of Polk. Its distance in miles from Oregon and 
California is less than that of some of our Aleutian islands which 
fringe the Behring Sea and look like stepping-stones toward an- 
other continent. 

By the acquisition of the Philippines, which came to us with- 
out our planning, we have taken a larger step than heretofore. 
We now stand in the tropics at the southwest portal of Asia. 
Some, on the ground that past traditions of expansion have ceased 
to operate, that increased expenses and higher taxation are inevit- 
able, that the large native populations of the tropical islands 
cannot be governed by our democratic system — that the islanders 
cannot look forward to statehood in the Union — that new race 
problems will arise, and that some system of forced or indentured 
labor will be necessary to develop large industries, are predicting 
the beginning of the end of the republic. Others, though admit- 
ting that the dangers are larger than they were in previous ac- 
quisitions in which the stronger race has dominated and the for- 
eign element become Americanized, feel that with England as an 
object lesson in the assimilation of mixed races we having learned 



36 American Expansion Policy 

to conquer self, can successfully deal with the Malays of "Dewey 
Peninsula" and need not despair of the republic. They assert that 
the Ship of State still has her anchors, and that America, abund- 
antly able to meet new conditions in world movements, will, in 
the next century, become the leading world-power in trade and in- 
dustrial expansion. Writers are telling us that the trade of the 
tropics will be the largest factor in the era upon which we are 
entering; that the trend of modern history seems to be toward 
colonization and protectorates for less civilized peoples; and that 
it will be futile for any first class power to fold its hands and 
stand aloof from regions which, although they perhaps cannot 
be colonized by whites, must be governed by a base in the tem- 
perate zones — by the United States and other nations whose duty 
it is to undertake the work in the interest of all as a trust for 
civilization."^ Those favoring expansion laugh at "trembling ones 
shrieking at the self-conjured ghost of imperialism, as if empire 
could grow on freedom's soil," and urge that civilization shall 
reach out in helpfulness to lift the less enlightened to liberty's 
plane, to search for fresh resources, to transform seas into paths 
for ships, and yoke nature to serve man. 



«2 W. Alleyne Ireland, in Atlantic Monthly for December, 1898, has given 
an interesting article on European experience with tropical colonies ; also, see 
an article by Benjamin Kidd, on the control of the tropics, in the same issue 
of the same magazine. Also. Ireland's "The Far-Eastern Tropics." 



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THE POLITICAL CYCLOPAEDIA 

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